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August 17, 2012, 5:35 am UTC

Digital media today has attained an all time high and every country is in immense need of newer technologies so as to avail greater internet and broadband speed. Throwing light on many metrics, including connection speeds, attack traffic, network connectivity/availability/latency problems, and IPv6 growth/transition progress, as well as traffic patterns across leading Web sites and digital media providers Akamai, a cloud platform publishes the State of the Internet report every quarter. This report includes data gathered from across the Akamai Intelligent Platform during the first quarter of 2012 about attack traffic, broadband adoption, and mobile connectivity, as well as trends seen in this data over time.

Highlighting the Global Internet Penetration, the report states that More than 666 million unique IP addresses from 238 countries and regions around the world connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform in the first quarter of 2012. This represents a six percent increase when compared to the fourth quarter of 2011 and almost a 14 percent increase versus the first quarter of 2011.

The unique IP address count across the top 10 connecting countries represented nearly 66 percent of the global figure, a concentration level approximately one percent lower than in the fourth quarter of 2011. When looking at year-over-year changes in IP address connections, China, Brazil, Italy, and Russia all once again maintained growth rates in excess of 20 percent.

Following theWorld IPv6 Launchin June, where a number of organizations permanently "turned on" IPv6 support for their web sites, Akamai anticipates beginning to see a greater number of IPv6 connections. This will also be driven by providers rolling out native IPv6 connectivity to their subscribers, and greater availability of popular content over IPv6.

India doesn’t seem to acquire any spot on the penetration chart leaving us a great scope to overcome this huge void of insufficiency.

Security remains a cause of concern for all the countries and major sites getting hacked has become the general news flash. Remarking on the Attack Traffic and Top Ports Attacked the report states that more than 42 percent of observed attack traffic originated in the Asia Pacific/Oceania region; Europe originated approximately 35 percent; North and South America were responsible for a combined 21 percent; and just under 1.5 percent came from Africa.

While examining attack traffic on an individual source country basis, Akamai saw quarterly growth in the percentage of observed attack traffic from China (16 percent and number one on the top 10), the United States (11 percent), Russia (seven percent), Turkey (5.7 percent), Romania (three percent), and Germany (1.9 percent). However, Taiwan (5.3 percent), South Korea (4.3 percent), and Brazil (four percent) all saw percentages drop relative to the prior quarter. India falls on the ninth spot when it comes to attack traffic originating countries. Attack traffic concentration among the top 10 ports increased significantly in the first quarter of 2012, with these ports responsible for 77 percent of observed attacks, up from 62 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Talking about the Peak Connection Speeds, the report suggests that when it comes to average connection speeds, all of the top 10 countries experienced positive year-over-year changes in average connection speeds. Globally, a total of 125 countries experienced year-over-year increases and only 10 countries that qualified for inclusion saw declines in connection speeds. The global average connection speed in the first quarter was 2.6 Mbps.

Once again, South Korea (15.7 Mbps) featured the fastest average connection speed. Countries/regions rounding out the top 5 included Japan (10.9 Mbps), Hong Kong (9.3 Mbps), the Netherlands (8.8 Mbps) and Latvia (8.8 Mbps). With Asian countries topping the chart of speedy connections India pictures on the 112th spot.

Mobile as a medium has gained immense popularity lately and one thing that defines the usage of any smartphone or network is the speed that it offers. Surfacing the Mobile Connection SpeedsAkamai found that a mobile provider in Germany delivered the fastest average connection speed at slightly less than 6 Mbps. Of all mobile operators tracked, five had an average connection speed of greater than 4 Mbps, while 65 mobile operators had average connection speeds greater than 1 Mbps. Only three providers had average connection speeds below 500 kbps.

When looking at peak connection speeds for the mobile providers worldwide for which Akamai analyzed data, a provider in Hong Kong offered the highest average peak connection speed of 32.2 Mbps. A German provider came in a close second at 31.2 Mbps. Overall, six mobile operators had average peak connection speeds of greater than 20 Mbps – double the number of the previous quarter. 31 providers had average peak connection speeds above 10 Mbps and all providers had average peak connection speeds above 2 Mbps.

A country like India where digital media is soaring at a great pace, internet/broadband and mobile connectivity index remains a big blasting question. Most of the Asian countries are doing extremely well when it comes to developing the infrastructure for the advancement of the digital economy but this exhausted report has put the Indian Digital Scenario under a scanner. The government here needs to understand the importance of economical yet qualitative availability of internet connection which will lead to an overall upliftment of the economic condition of our country by generating numerous job prospects and inducing efficiency.